Monday 12 May 2008

The Great Goji Berry Con!


Everywhere these days some product or other is having 'Tibetan' or 'Himalayan' goji berries added to it, its even being put in chocolate now! Goji berries are being marketed as a wonderful super food that can help cancer patients with reduced white blood cells after chemotherapy, allegedly. There is no real evidence to support that claim as yet, or indeed any of the other claims being made by the online health shops that jump on the band wagon to make a pretty penny out of the latest health fashion.

But everywhere its being marketed as a super food, and people are falling for it in droves because its being marketed with the mystical influence of Tibet and Himalaya! Why because something is linked to eastern mysticism are we more inclined to buy it? Are we that gullible that we need to swallow added mysticism with our herbs, because it will do us more good? I don't doubt this herb has healing properties, but I am cynical about the claims being made about it, with no evidence to back it up.

Until this week I knew very little about the goji berry, aside from the fact that we'd mistakenly bought a pack a few months ago, in a rush to get out of the health food shop on route to somewhere else. We were actually after a packet of cinnamon coated cranberries! Si tried them, as did I and we weren't impressed. So we were happy to never touch them again, I don't care how much something does me good, if it tastes as nasty as that I won't take it unless I really, really have to! But then I recently got a wonderful book by Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal called 'Hedgerow Medicine' and I was stunned to discover that the goji berry has been a naturalised plant in the UK for over 250 years!

Please note most places sell it as goji berry, they never tell you the name its commonly known as in the UK, which is Lycium, or its Latin name Lycium barbarum syn Lycium chinense. And wonder of wonders now I know it can be easily grow over here, the fact that some of the health shop packs just say goji berries and don't say where the country of origin is, makes me even more cynical, how many people think they're getting mystical tibetan berries for their hard earned cash?

No country of origin leaves the gullible shopper to make the tibetan connection for themselves and who wouldn't after all the media hype, with the additional veil of not knowing goji's grow in the UK. It can be found in the wild in Lincolnshire, the midlands and various coastal areas in the UK.

I partly feel stupid, a few weeks ago Joe Swift one of the Gardeners World team planted some goji berry plants on his new allotment on the programme. And I sat there in the goji darkness (in my pre Lycium days) wondering how on earth he would manage to grow these exotic plants from the Tibetan mountains, in London, on an allotment! Now I know they'll grow easily in the UK, because they already do, pssst I wonder if he knows?

Incidentally did you know that as from April 30th 2008 the UK government has banned the import of lycium plants, its okay to import the berries and seeds but not the plants, so all the plants being sold in the UK from now on will have been raised in the UK (see DEFRA - Prohibited Import of Goji Plants) and if the plants are being raised over here, will we see more commercial goji berries farms cropping up, and will that mean that the price will go down? The cynic in me doubts it, but if the price does come down, I wonder what that will do to the goji's super food status?

The story of how the goji berries got into the UK is down to a chap called Archibald Campbell who was the Duke of Argyll (1682 -1761), and around the 1730's he had some tea plants imported to his home, the full story can be read in Julie & Matthew's book. What I do now know about Goji berries aka also Duke of Argyll's Tea Plant, Chinese Wolfberry, Box Thorn & Matrimony Vine is that it has antioxidant properties, its full of beta-carotene, is high in iron and riboflavin (B2) and has goodly amounts of selenium and vitamin C, it can also help to promote a healthy gut flora. I'm tempted to have a go at growing my own and seeking them out in the wild to wildcraft, makes me wonder how many other 'wonder products' the public get sold under some other name actually grow in this country. Incidentally the flowers of the Lycium are really pretty making yet another good another reason for growing it, but left to its own devices it can take over the garden so be warned.

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